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Semiotic Analysis of Chanels No.5

Chanels Logo

The logo of the french fashion brand Chanel is one of the most iconic fashion logos we know. It's made of two interlocked "C" which stand for the initials of Coco Chanel, the founder.

It's a typographic logo, and the logo doesn't stand for anything specific, so it's not iconic but symbolic. The interlocked C's are arbitrary and we first have to learn that the two C's are related to the brand called Chanel, it's not self-explanatory. The logo can become an index when we find it on Chanel shops and it indicates the presence of the brand.

Interestingly Chanels logo has never changed throughout the time which is quite unusual for brands. When we think of Chanel we think of something with a great history which is not quirky or youthful, but rather consistently high class. Not ever changing the logo supports this image.

Color

Black: elegance, elitism, wealth

Chanel No. 5

Let's analyse "The medium is the message" regarding Chanels first perfume. The bottle could be seen as a medium on which the brand sits, and communicates with us before we can smell the fragrance. The relatively simple crystal bottle is pure and transparent and suggests exquisity, reminding us a bit of a whiskey bottle, also with the color of the perfume.

A marketing brochure in 1924 talked about the medium bottle for No. 5:

"the perfection of the product forbids dressing it in the customary artifices. Why rely on the art of the glassmaker ...Mademoiselle is proud to present simple bottles adorned only by ...precious teardrops of perfume of incomparable quality, unique in composition, revealing the artistic personality of their creator."

(Mazzeo, Tilar J., The Secret of Chanel No. 5, HarperCollins, 2010, p. 104)

We can see there's much of a statement in the shape of a bottle, which affects what we think of the perfume and also who it appeals to. The bottle of a perfume can also justify its price, depending whether it looks or and feels exquisite enough or not.

The bottle itself has become an iconic sign over the time. It conveys a certain message if a woman has a Chanel No. 5 bottle standing in her shelf, it makes her appear strong, powerful, classy and elegant and all the attributes we associate with the brand (which is communicated through in advertising, showing admirable highly respected women). If we apply Charles Sanders Peirce's theory of signs to No. 5 the object is the fragrance, the representamen is the perfume bottle with the name Chanel written on it and the interpretant is everything that comes to our mind when we see the bottle (the elegance and classiness etc.)

We have seen the bottle so many times that even without the brand logo we associate the shape of the bottle with Chanel. It can also be found as an icon printed on shirts.

Semiotics, Meaning, Communication and Other Things

What is semiotics?

"A science which studies the role of signs as part of social life" (Ferdinand de Saussure, a swiss linguist)

‘The transport of meaning’ in the world of branding

Meaning is transported in a message, which is considered as a signal. It is effective if the message has some influence. Brands encode meanings and the consumer decodes it. Sometimes signs are decoded with different meanings than they have been encoded, and this is where it can get problematic for branding. For example the white top of Montblanc pens, which should represent snow, are decoded by some people in a religious context as the shield of David. If the communication of a message works depends a lot on the cultural context.

"Transport of meaning" could also relate to a way of making the consumer think what you want him to think. It's about conveying a message (a brand image, an emotion, an ideal, etc). In the world of branding, "meanings" can be USPs (unique selling propositions), brand identities, images etc. Usually these meanings are artificial and can often be even seen as a lie.

Meanings can be transported in a variety of ways and design plays a major role for that. Every color conveys a meaning, the use of type conveys a meaning, the language of the photos conveys a meaning - besides the meaning of the product itself. The meaning of a pen is to simply write, but brands make a pen a lifestyle product which expresses who you are. It makes a difference wheather you write with a montblanc pen, wheather you use blue or black ink, which shade the blue has, or whether you use cheap disposable merchandise pens. This all adds to one's personality and brands try to use it, to make you fell more whole with using their products and your desired lifestyle their pen embodies.

‘The medium is the message’, the roles of channels, media and formats in the production of meaning in branding

The phrase "The medium is the message" suggests that the way you present your message is more important than what you actually say. People might not pay much attention to the information of a brochure, but they may notice the high quality of the paper, that it somehow feels worthy, luxurious and trustworthy. They feel that the brochure somehow stands out quality-wise and that the products this brand sells must be of high quality as well. You can sell cheap products, but have your branding suggesting high quality and everyone will believe your products are high quality (works well with spices, chocolate etc.). It might not work when the two clash too violently, the consumer might feel betrayed then.

The content (what is communicated) is less important than it's form (the medium through which people communicate).

"This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves"

(Understanding Media, p.7)

Mediums have more impact than any message conveyed through them. Media like radios television and the internet changed the way we act in everyday lives, regardless of the messages, how we interact witch each other. The fact that smartphones (medium) exist fundamentally change the way humans interact and communicate with each other, regardless of the message. They dramatically reshaped the communication landscape.

"Indeed, it is only too typical that the content of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium"

(Understanding Media, p.9)

Roman Jakobsen’s six factors of communication, explained with brands communicating messages

Referential function

Describing, describing what is there, appealing to reason (the features of the product, and how it helps, how it feels). The target factor is the context. It would usually describe a unique feature of the product, but can also be used in campaigning, with merely stating shocking facts like BUND did: "Every 60 seconds a species dies out", which at the same time works in an emotive way due to how drastic the message it.

Emotive function

Expressing, decorating what you say with words, message appealing to your emotions. The target factor is the addresser. Often drugs like alcohol and tobacco are advertised in an emotive way, Jack Daniel's for example uses the words fear and commitment in one of their ads, suggesting you'd can be one of them fearless men if you only drink their whiskey

Conative function

Commanding, telling you what to do, convincing, get someone to act (good for getting ones attention). The target factor is the addresser. Marlboro’s "Don't be a Maybe", tells you in a direct commanding way what to do, to smoke and be cool.

Poetic function

How you choose your words, eloquence, which vocabulary, targets culture. The target factor is the message. Calvin Klein spots for Obsession by David Lynch in an example of the poetic use of words in a commercial, not describing the product features but creating desirability with poetry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQyUFFjAKYA

Phatic function

Engaging for the sake of a conversation, making smalltalk, being polite, keeping a conversation going, attracting attention. The target factor is the contact. Banners on buildings such as iphone photos blown up, that merely say "hello" and seek for your attention are one example for that.

Metalingual function

analyzing language, the language you use to describe language, grammer, etc., the language used in dictionaries (target factor is the code)

Peirce’s theory of the sign

There are three elements to a sign:

the representamen (the sign itself)

the object for which the representamen stands

The interpretant (the effect in the mind of the user the representamen created)

A sign stands for something, and creates something (different) in people's minds, which is the interpretation of the first sign (which again is influenced by the cultural circumstances the sign and the user are in).

One sign is a bitten apple which creates the association with high quality well designed computers and phones in the minds of the user. Nikes swoosh stands originally for the wing of the greek goddess Nike, but is now found on sports products and never interpreted in a mythological way.

What is an arbitrary sign? How is this related to the idea of the motivation of the sign?

"A motivated mark is one that is understood without strong convention" or learning, for example the sign of a fish at a place that sells fish, unlike an owl in front of a bookshop, you have to learn first that owls stand for wisdom, which is connected to books.

The image of a woman (a siren) in front of a coffee shop (Starbucks) can be seen as arbitrary, because there is no direct relation between females and coffee. It actually needs some decoding to get to the meaning of the logo which could be obsession and addiction (which the greek mythology around sirens suggest), although it is said to be chosen because Starbucks was looking for a nautical symbol as they are based in Seattle next to the sea.

Iconic signs / indexical signs / symbolic signs

Icon, index and symbol refer to the relationship between a sign and the object it stands for.

Iconic Linked to their object by similarity

a camera for a photographer

leaves for a tea brand (cupper tea)

a burger for a burgerhouse (burgerking)

Indexical Signs that are physically linked to their object (by location or a casual relationship)

popcorn for a cinema

wine bottles for a french restaurant

flowers in front of a flowershop

Symbolic No connection between the brand and the image, only because someone decided the two go together

a horse for Lloyds bank (horses have no connection to banks)

Apple for computers

a star for a car (Mercedes)

Requirements of trademarks that brands fulfill or not fulfill

visibility (distinguishable from its surroundings, identiiable)

simplicity (simple in its context and easy to understand)

attention value

decent - visually and linguistically decent and not violating common

taste, no unintended meanings

timelessness, has to be durable, but still fashionable

The CHANEL logo fulfills all of these trademarks. It's one clean geometric shape which works in a variety of colors. It only consists of two C's and is therefore very simple and memorable. It's geometricy serves the attention value, it looks decent and graphically harmonic and is timeless because it's a clean shape without any details that could remind us of any specific era.

Dixy Chicken logos don't fulfill the requirements. They don't look graphically decent due to the overload of letters and colors and images in one form, they use two typefaces that don't go well together, outlines around letters and shiny effects. The name dixy fails in terms of linguistic decency because it sounds like a toilet. The logo fails in terms of simplicity, and look like lots of other chicken shop's logos because they don't have anything memorisable. It's also not timeless because it's very bold in it's colors which is not too trendy currently, and even the font would not be used professionally today.

How Media Propaganda Influences Humanitarian Aid

Humanitarian aid for women in Afghanistan is a great example of the impact of media manipulation.

Lina Abirafeh discussed it in "Gendered Aid Interventions and Afghan Women - Images versus Realities" in the book " Muslim Women in War and Crisis" (2010).

Her article is about women's rights and emancipation or "liberation" in Afghanistan and western post war aid for women, which the author criticizes as unsuccessful, rejected and manipulated by the media.

She starts with describing the Afghan history of gender politics. Already in the 19th century there have been attempts of emancipation of women in Afghanistan. She describes the back and forth between "modernization and conservative backlash" and how "history repeats itself" when there are wars or governmental changes, which made me think of the following picture I found online once:

(Source: Pinterest)

After a brief history of women in Afghanistan she focuses on the post war period where aid agencies tried to focus on "saving" Afghan women, which is massively criticized by author.

She writes about the media influence on aid institutions, and the manipulation of the perspective on the situation of women that comes with it. In media, Afghan women are portrayed as "helpless victims" and as a weak and passive homogenous mass that needs to be "liberated" "from" something, because they cannot do it themselves.

Media in general can raise awareness and it succeeded in creating sympathy for women in Afghanistan, but she claims this manipulated image leads to inappropriate forms of aid.

Why is aid dependent on a media image at all? Aren't there other sources of information and insight on peoples situation? She answers that humanitarian crises usually usually not "allow for such careful consideration" and aid institutions are expected to act as quickly as possible and show immediate results, although quick changes, how Abirafeh's interviews with Afghan women showed, are not even in the interest of the aggrieved party themselves. She writes about the risk of losing their identity when change is forced upon them too quickly, because they still have Muslim traditional desires (such as being a "good" wife and mother) which they wouldn't want to give up in order to be "liberated" in a western way. Also the term "liberation" is a rhetorical manipulation in her view, because it implies they have to liberated "from" something.

Interesting for a designer is what she writes about awareness. Her studies showed that most women admit to "suffer under a patriarchal system" since they are able to see "themselves through the eyes of the world", it made them "conscious of their own suffering". That means that media (and therefore also design) has the ability to show people how miserable their own lives actually are and create a desire to change.

Later she writes, that Muslim women would rather like to change the situations themselves, than by aid institutions, which makes me wonder how bad a person has to suffer in order to change anything himself in todays world.

Although it is disputable that giving someone rights and freedom as an external operator is possible at all, we see throughout the (western) world that people's situations are bad or even deteriorating but it's still too comfortable to let everything remain as it is, because changing something requires giving up the comfort zone of tradition. Is it because these people don't have enough awareness for their own situation? Can designers help to make them more aware and active about grievance?

Cut Your Hair and Lose Your Ego

"There is a clear relationship between myth and social custom in India as myths are often instructive and determine forms of social behaviour."

There's not only an interesting cult about hair in Indian tradition, but also an interesting interrelationship between hair in India and money about which Eiluned Edwards writes in her article "Hair, devotion and trade in India"

Hair in the religious India is ritually considered as something unclean, as "all bodily emissions and waste matter are sources of pollution". It is said that hair is a gateway for the devil to enter a person and cause pollution and it is common belief that illness is caused by evil.

In ancient India there's a tradition of shaving hair, for a variety of reasons. Cutting your hair is seen as an "act of purification" which people do after a death in their family. When her husband dies, a widow is supposed to shave her hair off. Shaving hair represents the "abandonment of ego, the extinction of individuality, which is a prerequisite of achieving the soul's release, nirvana (…)". Although this is the spiritual background of shaving hair, the author doesn't consider that most people in India today don't know or even think about these ideas, but do it more of a reproduction of tradition and cultural practise, without a deeper understanding.

(Indian barbers shaving womens hair - corbisimages.com)

How a woman wears her hair in traditional India can say everything about her. Open women's hair references to being outside of accepted social norms. There are rules about wearing her hair open during her menstruation, which either refers to dirtiness or to a high fertility. Open hair can also refer to unrestrained sexuality, though the association can still be positive because the goddess Kali wears open hair as well.

Indians celebrate life steps with hair rituals. A child's first haircut is symbolically important as it marks the step to adulthood. Barbers in India who offer those ritual haircuts play an important role for the religious Indian.

Religious people donate their hair to temples for blessings. As mentioned before, the majority probably doesn't understand the metaphysical dimension behind this act, but neither seems to do the temples, that sell the peoples hair for the western extension market to make money. The indian hair market got out of control and Edwards writes about women now being mugged for their hair, or even forced by their families to sell their hair.

(Women’s cut hair in an Indian temple - img.diytrade.com)

As a personal conclusion, all of what Edwards writes about makes me question how decadent today's India seems to be. People cut their hair without understanding why and let other people sell it to the capitalist western beauty market, in order to be worn by people who believe they need longer hair (because of any current beauty ideal, which has been brought to us by the media?).

What would an appropriate use of cut hair be? Is it normal for ancient spiritual traditions to become decadent and an empty ritual people do without questioning anything? Is this even something reasonable criticising by someone in the West?

Beautifully sad and aesthetically unsettling

A reflection on an analysis of memorial cards in the catholic Irish culture.

Memorial cards are a catholic tradition. When someone dies, his family creates a card with his details, a photo and usually a prayer and catholic picture on the outside. The cards are distributed to all the deceased's loved ones.

Mary Ann Bolger's article "The Emphemera of Eternity: The Irish Catholic Memorial Card as Material Culture" focusses about the object culture of mourning and memorial cards in Ireland and it's development in production and visual appearance. The author claims, this topic lacks documentation and her article aims at stressing the "importance of examining the material dimension of printed matter".

She starts her article with the relationship of the Irish culture to death. Somes maintain, the Irish culture has a "cult of death". Funerals are a strong unifier of Irish communities and it's said that Ireland is a land of graveyards. Though memorial cards are not unique to Ireland they play a central role in their funerals.

She defines how typical memorial cards look like: They are "about two inches by four, with a holy picture on the obverse, typically an image of Christ, the Virgin or a saint, sometimes reproductions of famous, often counter-Reformation, art works. On the reverse one finds the name, date of death and addresses of the desceased, a few short prayers and a recent photograph." These cards are distributed to people the deceased knew.

What are memorial cards good for?

Besides having something that reminds you of the deceased person, Bolger writes, the families can "affirm public identity, religious observance and (…) status" with these cards.

The most interesting part is when she tries to explain the psychology behind memorial cards. She claims they help for the incorporation and the acceptance of the death of the loved person and to make life move on. Because they are only made for the dead it is a clear statement, like admitting this person is not there anymore.

old traditional memorial card (image: media.ancientfaces.com)

"modern” memorial card (image: media.ancientfaces.com)

Fugacity and Devotional Revolution

Memorial cards are meant to overdue death, but due to their materiality they are vulnerable and ephemeral themselves, because paper ages. In the past, photos were glued to these cards, which made them even more ephemeral, today the photos are digitally incorporated which takes away the card's tactility and in general "the vulnerability of the material can recall the vulnerability of the body". The modern ones are laminated and overdue a much longer period of time, a development in production which could challenge the church's perception of fugacity.

She writes about a "devotional revolution" when these cards started to be commercially and cheaply mass-produced and therefore easier disseminated.

Not only the production, also the design of these cards has changed which, the author claims, goes in hand with secularisation. Originally, portraits of the people were cropped to the person's face whereas modern card producers let you incorporate the portrait in a landscape which "represents a secular view of heaven, rather than a Catholic one".

The most recent trend is going away from portraits more towards photos of the person in action (for example at work or play). For her it demonstrates the new ways how Irish people "construct their identities and those of their families" but it sometimes causes strange connotations between the prayer lines and a rather less serious photo.

As a conclusion, the development of these cards, although it can somehow be seen as stylistic continuous and death and catholicism is detached from the modern world, is influenced by the evolution of printing techniques and trends. Throughout history these cards seem to resist any trends of design, from a neutral perspective they all seem to be rather bad taste, cheesy or just old fashioned. It is questionable weather such a card can represent a person after his death, weather it's an appropriate form of keeping memory of someone. But it's not really questioned because it is simple part of the tradition of Catholic Ireland.

Visual Activism

A few reflections of what Nicholas Mirzoff thinks about “visual activism”.

"Art might seem to be the only way to live a life for yourself in the global economy"

(Picture: blogfiles.wfmu.org)

We live in an extremely visualized world. Most of our days we're staring into screens, which provide us with pixels that either form words, images, or moving images. We are not only consuming those visuals, but we're also creating them, when we post something online. If it is something political, it could be part of something called "visual activism".

Nicholas Mirzoff wrote the chapter "Visual Activism" as an afterword for his book "How to see the world". The author himself is an activist and a Professor of Media, Culture and Communication.

He claims that living in an era of globalization and capitalism increases our desire to be artistic because all we do is so disconnected. We mainly work "for someone else's profit" and "art might seem to be the only way to live a life for yourself in the global economy".

He references to an opinion poll that said, 24 percent of young people have the desire to become an artist.

We can return back to questions of representation. In times when the government is not representing us as we wish to be represented, we have to do it on our own. We seek for self-authorship in the things we do, which results in recent trends such as having a Youtube blog, snapchatting, instagram and the like. Also selfies can be seen as some form of self-representation. The meme culture can be seen as visually commenting on things that are going on and expressing thoughts we all thought about a certain issue.

All of this is no political act by itself, but can be used for political activism.

He says today "we can actively use visual culture to create new self-images, new ways to see and be seen, and new ways to see the world."

A self portrait can be political. It can express the way you want to be seen. He gives a black woman as an example, wearing a leo-print shirt, a hat and glasses which aims as representing herself as a black lesbian woman in a homophobic environment (by the photographer Zanele Muholi). A person holding a piece of paper with a political statement, taking a photo of himself, can be seen as an act of visual activism, as seen in the Occupy movement (”We are the 99 percent”).

(Photo: anticap.files.wordpress.com)

For Mirzoff "visual activism" is the "interaction of pixels and actions to make change". It's not only about ways of seeing the world, but also changing it by direct political action, performance either in everyday life or in a theatre, conversations or a work of art.

An image alone won't change anything if it's not seen by anyone. And if it is seen by anyone, it might create an awareness about a certain issue, but what happens after that? Action? What happens between the visuals being seen and the action emerging from that?

Who judges what "action" is? And when is an action worth anything and when not? Is a work of art , for example in a theater, which is seen by a few people who later not change anything, activism? Does activism need to be efficient? Or can it exist solely for the sake of being activism and the expression of anger, a need, frustration or the need of change?

Is it cool or not to use your body for protesting in a sexy way?

"The body is very much a contextualised product of the relationship between capitalism, patriarchy, racism, colonialism and other systems of oppression."

The feminist movement has always transitioned and at the moment we observe a "third wave feminism" which has completely different body images than their ancestors. You find them expressing themselves in body-centric Slutwalks or the FEMEN protests. Theresa O'Keefe critically reflects on this protest style in her article "My body is my manifesto! Slutwalk, FEMEN and feminist protest". Her main criticism is that a Slutwalk-feminism is not inclusive for all women and not disrupting the predominant stereotypical and patriarchal image of the female body, but celebrating it.

What is Slutwalk?

Slutwalk refers to a movement of feminist protest marches that claims women should not be blamed for rape because of the way they dress. It began as a reaction to a Toronto police officer's statement that "women should avoid dressing like sluts" when they don't want to be sexually assaulted. The movement provokes with female protesters dressing in a pornified way, claiming it's their own choice.

(Picture: secreteast.ca)

Subversion and Slutwalk

Slutwalk is feminist but rejecting the stereotypical label. They adopt the masculinised approach to woman's sexuality which is criticised by O'Keefe for only reproducing it but not subverting or disrupting it. She claims Slutwalk embraces the male body image and the male capitalist perception of what is sexy and play with it as a protest form. They solely aim at gaining attention and "the male gaze" but they fail to bring the attention beyond their bodies to what they actually want to address. Isn't it subversive to reclaim something back that was "masculinised" and something that is said to be "the patriarchal image" and make it yours again, even though society tells you, you're only trying to please men and fit into the norm? To me it rather sounds as a liberation from anything society tells them they should or should not be like, and being sexual in a way they enjoy themselves, even when it's coincidentally the same way men enjoy it. They're not forcing themselves to be different, only for the sake of being different. She also criticises that it's a white woman's privilege to be able to call herself slut and mean it in a positive way. For many women this word is inappropriate, may it be due to their history of slavery, religion, because they've been sexually oppressed or asexual. At this point I was wondering what the author is demanding from a protest movement. Why is she expecting a provocative liberation movement to be inclusive and politically correct? Why does every single woman has to be able to identify herself with it? Isn't it okay that the word "slut" is only reclaimed by a little group of females?

(Photo: hercampus.com)

Can there be a movement without theory?

Slutwalk is playful, it's a celebration of femininity and the perception of sexyness in a cynical way. They are not thinking too much, but expressing their anger in a very direct way. Slutwalk is making feminism sexy, allowing women to be sexy and seductive and play with the male gaze, and fighting against being exposed to the men's will. It's challenging our opinions on who to please and who to piss off. They're a great example of modern times, that they allow themselves to be be superficial and without a lot of depth and be fine with not being too dogmatic about anything, but insisting on their rights. Lenin said "Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement" and O'Keefe criticises the new feminist movements for being too superficial in order to create change. She claims they only focus on the body and are lacking intellectual depth and theory behind their activism. I would agree that it makes them less powerful than they could be when they had strong convincing arguments that no one can object. They can be criticised for not being political enough but focussing on the personal, but a 1970 feminist slogan goes "The personal is political".

#slutwalk

When Girls Dress like Sluts - The Pornification of Fashion

The pornification of visual culture has reached the fashion world and girls dress like pornstars. Pamela Church Gibson, author of the article "Pornstyle: Sexualized Dress and the Fracturing of Feminism" suggests that fashion theory should not only talk about high fashion and subcultural fashion, but also about these new "systems" and about what normal people wear. She claims that the pornification of fashion happens neither fashionable nor in an alternative way, but shapes what we perceive as normal, being made acceptable by glamorous celebrities.

She emphasises the difference between "stylish" celebrities and sexy and glamorous celebrities. Those sexy celebrities have more impact on young girls, because they consume celebrity magazines rather than high fashion magazines. I would disagree with this point, because I doubt anyone reads magazines at all these days. Young people rather get their fashion inspiration online from fashion bloggers.

This article contrasts pornstyle and high fashion in various ways. She states that pornstyle has a different body ideal than high fashion: It's "curvaceous, with a pronounced bosom and long limbs, which are invariably bared and often perms-tanned". This body ideal needs "constant self-surveillance and endless maintenance"

She is also contrasting "tasteful nudity" as seen as Helmut Newton's work and "pornsyle" as lately seen in Mario Testino's shoot with Kate Moss and Rhianna, using a pink as the main colour which, she claims, is rather pornographic than feminine.

Mario Testino’s pornstyle shoot with Kate Moss and Rhianna (photo: artschoolvets.com)

Helmut Newton’s high fashion eroticism (1975) (photo:anothermag.com)

She also throws light on protests that use the female body in a sexy way such as Slutwalks or the FENEM protests which raises the debate of "empowerment" throughgh dress. These questions split the feminist movement. The Slutwalk movment claims that girls can dress however they like, but it’s criticized for girls maybe being socialized as “Living Dolls“

Do they underestimate the power of females? What about women who use their female attributes to achieve what they want in a world dominated by men. Maybe short dresses will give them the attention they deserve to be heard what they want to say. When do you think can dressing up sexy be empowering for females?

In general the author seems to be rather conservative and worries about girls dressing too sexy. In her article she doesn't pay much attention on the girls wearing this style. It seems like she is shaming the media and celebrities for promoting sexualised dresses, but isn’t it important to ask why girls enjoy dressing up like that? In one paragraph she writes that it aspires specifically to attract the male gaze. She seems to ignore when females dress like that: I recon it's mosty at night when they go out and party which is all about playfulness and celebrating hedonism in a slightly provocative way.

Is prostyle provocative? Obviously some people feel provoked, but is it meant to be by those who wear those dresses? Do they have specific purposes for dressing up this way? Or it rather an attempt to experiment with attention a female can get for her look? (In a positive or negative way).

“Clothing as a form of nonverbal, visual communication is a powerful means of making subversive statements, because these statements are not necessarily constructed or received on a conscious or rational level.”

(Crane)

On Gaysome Magazines

Have you ever heard someone saying American Typewriter is a gay typeface?

Alice Twemlow opens her article about the dutch designer Jop van Bennekom with this provocative statement, which the designer himself said. He is the editor and designer of magazines for men, such as the gay magazine Butt or the men's fashion magazine Fantastic Man. The article highlights that he makes all those magazines about himself and his interests, and he is highly successful with it.

The article „No muscles, no tattoos – Each of Job van Bennekom's eccentric magazines perches precariously at its niche's edge“ has been published in the design journal Eye which reflects on the design, visual and cultural world. The author Alice Twemlow writes for various magazines with a focus on graphic design. Her article is based in an interview with van Bennekom and tries to portrait him and his magazines and editorial style.

She starts with some notes on the typefaces he uses. In his magazine called Butt he usese the American Typewriter because of its faggy-ness, which appears with a bad spacing and kerning in order to make it look less smooth. The whole magazine is printed in black on paper with a „strawberry milkshake“ color. In contrast to that she quotes him saying that the headings typeface Compact was chosen for its masculinity and because it's „leather, rough and buff“

Look what he did to American Typewriter... Is it “faggy”? (photo: http://sobooks.jp/)

She portraits his Butt magazine as an imperfect gay sex magazine. Unlike most gay magazines it is not about retouched fake male bodies, but reality. There is no studio photography, only „real“ environments, although it rather seems to be some kind of staged reality. And his guidline: „no muscles, no tattoos“. The early issues focused on such trivial things in life like napkins.

The article talks a bit about his carrer, studying in Amsterdam, being frustrated with the non-conceptual approaches to design of his school, and in the end having an exceptional final editorial project about portraiting his friends and the things that surround them, which he later continued as a real magazine: Re-. The strength of this magazine are described as highly conceptually based and asethetically controlled. There is „a subtle line between seriousness and irony, reality and fiction, celebtration and cynicism, infomality and artifice“.

It was quite interesting to read how he deals with ads in his Butt magazine. There is one colored on the back, and the ones in the inside are only typographic ads which are designed by himself, in order to not interrupt the readers Butt experience.

(http://linedandunlined.com)

Van Bennekom is one of the designers that do everything themselves. He writes the articles as well as taking the photos and designing and editing it. It'sabout himself, working for clients never really satisfied him. Other designers say his work is all about representation. Because gay men were not represented in the way he wanted it, he had to start something himself.

His whole debate about keeping it real raises the question if a photo (in a magazine) can be „real“ at all. Can a photo depict reality? Doesn’t the fact that someone is there, in the situation with a camera, affect everything and everyone, making it unreal, or at least different that it would normally be? How can you minimize the impact a camera has in a shooting situation to make everything more real?

Working on some editorial design for the review of “No muscles, no tattoos“ by Alice Twemlow about Butt magazines designer Jop van Bennekom.

How a Tradition of Disorderly Behavior Can Transform a City

According to Wikipedia, Amsterdam is "the most bicycle-friendly city with over a million people in the world." It also says that "over 60% of trips are made by bike in the inner city".

Driving cars in this city has been made pretty inconvenient. There are high parking fees and many streets are closed for cars or one-way.

Pete Jordan's book "In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist" explains that is has not always been like that and gives some insight to the history of cyclist activism and protest movements that have made Amsterdam to the cycling paradise it is today.

He starts his chapter on "Death to the car!" with the story of Amsterdam in the 70's as the hippie heaven city of freedom, relaxation and tolerance. In contrast to that, Amsterdam was full of cars and a distress for cyclists until massive protest movements emerged. He illustrates those protests as a form of direct action as the people took over the streets on bikes.

The article highlights all the problems the cyclist movement had to face. Although they were peaceful from the beginning on, those protests caused aggression and some mad drivers for example pulled them off their bikes.

It raises the question: Who is more radical: Those who destroy the city with their cars or those who protest and try to save it?

A nice quote by Henk Bakker is thrown in between: "Capitalism become so dependent on the automobile that if you battle the car, you're also fighting the system."

The protests were at some point boosted by the oil industry when the Netherlands decided to send weapons to Isreael and therefore the oil-producing Arab states diminished the oil supply which led to an energy crisis in Holland. The government decided to ban driving on Sundays and the people celebrated the car-free streets with pickniques on the highways. Although the author writes those picknickes were ended by the polices, it seems like a good incentive to make people enjoy their new freedom that arised with a ban. Later, even politicians refused to go by car on Sundays and took bikes. Intense political debates were following, some elections turned out to be disappointing for the cyclists, somes ended changing everything for the better with redesigning streets to favor cyclists over motorists. After all the numbers of bikers increased more and more and Amsterdam became the most bike friendliest city ever.

His chapters are written in a pretty vibrant way, spiced with some personal anecdotes and humorous parts about the history of cycling in Amsterdam which makes it pretty entertaining to read and enjoyable to see how a city can be changed with enthusiasm. Can this be seen as an example of successful guerilla protest or rather a happy coincidence of the right motivation at the right time and the power of endurance in a favorable political situation?

How to Creatively Protest Against Injustice and Sweatshops in the Fashion Industry

Most clothes we buy are manufactured under sweatshop labor by poorly paid people in terrible working conditions in developing countries. Most of us don't care at all. They try to justify the purchase of cheap sweatshop clothing with the argument, that more expensive clothes are probably produced under bad conditions as well.

The author of "The Handbook of Fashion Studies" Regina A. Root writes in her article "Ethical Fashion - The View from Argentinia" in "Fashion Theory" (2014) about the problems of fast fashion. Since brands serve the market with more collections a year, the production has to become quicker, but without increasing the price in order to remain competitive. That's why producers turn to sweatshops and violate human rights issues.

She highlights that there is some kind of movement in the fashion design world that, in contrast to what she calls "fast fashion", aims towards "emotionally durable goods" and "slow fashion". Here article reviews how these issues are dealt with in Argentina.

A type of demonstration that emerged in Argentina is called Escrache. It's a method for getting politicians to listen to you. She refers to it as an act of "public shaming similar to a protest, that makes human suffering within the fashion industry more visible". They often protest in front of the homes of the responsible ones, for example with graffiti and text on their walls. She writes about an escrache in front of a Zara store. The protesters didn't do any damage to the shop but projected a film on the storefront, documenting the conditions under which the workers produced the fashion. She writes this makes "evidence visible" and ends her article with a notice that this peaceful form of protest might lead to the next fashion revolution.

Speaking about a revolution, it's interesting when consumer protests are not aiming at the government but those who are immediately responsible for things. It's easy to disclaim the responsibility for human rights to the government, but I think we should also accuse the masses of mindless consumers who never question who made the clothes that cover their skin and what they are indirectly doing to others with their purchase decisions.

But who in the end is the responsible one for sweatshops?

You could blame the consumers for financially supporting the cruelty with their money and because they're the ones who are responsible for the demand on the market. You could blame the government because they could pass laws that prohibit sweatshops, set a minimum wage and a minimum standard of the working environment. And you could blame the retailers for doing their business in developing countries where they know about the bad safety conditions instead of any other place where the industry standards are more fair, but more expensive.

I believe when you buy a sweatshop shit T-shirt, you are part of the problem. You are part of the system.

Would it help if we all bought fewer clothes, but pay more, to afford a better wage and working conditions and therefore a better living for the workers?

What else can a citizen do to make the whole system better and fairer?

Barbie Dolls and Imperialism

I bet we have all heard that Barbies can be criticized for the dangerous body image they convey to little girls. They are a symbol of a culture of materialism, consumerism and capitalism.

But did you know that Barbies can also promote Cold War values and strong nationalism and US superiority? Did you know that Barbie isn't necessarily arian, blonde and wearing pink dresses? There's a "Ghanian Barbie" in the product range of Mattel who comes with the traditional stereotypical Ghanian look and style.

Carol Magee wrote an article about the nostalgia, imperialism and identity issues that are connected to Barbies: “Forever in Kente: Ghanian Barbie and the Fashioning of Identity”

In the beginning the emphasizes on the importance of clothing for a Barbie as the embodiment of identity. The Ghanian Barbie is not supposed to be played with but is part of a collectors series named "Dolls of the World". She wears "kente" cloth which is a fabric native to the ethnic group of Ghana and is overloaded with Ghanian decoration.

Those dolls represent the world in strange nostalgic ways, mainly to the American market. This Barbie seems to encompass all the stereotypes of traditional Ghana. In times of everything getting more complicated, the author claims there is a longing for simpler times. The Ghanian Barbie seems to have a clearer relationship with the world and reminds of a romanticized past.

Dangerous thing, Magee claims, is that this kind of ethnic dressing is a "past oriented form of identity". And when children play with dolls, it "socializes a child to enact certain roles and implicitly transmits important cultural values".

She defines imperialism as a nation dominating the resources of another. She suggests to consider the Barbie as an economic empire for the American brand Mattel and that America, by pretending to promote democracy, imperalizes the world with their capitalist ideas.

Whereas you can change the clothes of normal Barbies and make them be whatever you want them to be, the outfit of the Ghanian Barbie can't be taken off of her, which is restrictive as the author claims. Barbies in general come with the impression of freedom of changing clothes, but even that is limited to the market she states.

One might think a Barbie is only a piece of plastic, but speaking about imperialism, she marks out the importance of understanding culture, which encompasses both the "material production, the physical objects" as well as the "symbolic systems that provide meanings for those products".

Products have meanings and messages that go beyond their intentional use. Same thing with fashion, or shoes - it's not only about covering your body, but expressing something, communicating with the world.

She states the body of a Barbie shows a westernized gender "ideal" and it could be seen as colonizing the idea of ideal women's bodies in the world with the Barbie, as well as the american way of consumption.

The whole topic might seem slightly ridiculous, but regarding the even more ridiculous amount of money behind it, that's when the joke turns sour. She writes that the worldwide sales for Barbies in 2003 totalled 3.6 billion US dollar. Isn't it insane?

I really enjoyed this article and the way the author encourages the reader to question internalized ideas because they can bear serious ideological messages. But is there a mission behind the Barbie culture and the way the „Dolls of the World“ are racist and ideological? Or is it all interpretation? Or a result of the mindset of the people in this company who created these dolls?

Logos, Nationalism, Identification and Change

So we learned that design is essential for purposes of identification. Design is a vehicle of change and identity changes require logo changes as well.

Jaview Gimeno Martinez's text "Designing Symbols. The logos of the spanish autonomous communities (1977-1991)" throws light on logos and design as a means of communication between the government and the people, the legitimization of governments and nationalism.

Nationalism and Identity

He starts with questioning why we perceive and accept the idea of states as natural in general and gives a few interesting answers. The idea of states is "extended to the whole planet" and we don't know any other systems, secondly language connects the concept of a nation to things that indeed are natural and unchosen to humans ("Vaterland” - father's land).

When it comes to building and shaping a nation, logos seem to play an important role. The author claims the logos link the institution to both place and time, territory and place.

In the 1980s the dictatorship in Spain has been replaced by 17 new autonomous communities with their own governments. They were either socialist, conservative or nationalist and each of them got a new own logo.

It was a process of internal defragmentation of Spain, so there was no "singular spanish identity" anymore. Therefore the various autonomous communities were creating a distinct identity, different from the other spanish regions.

Transformation of the logos

Logos convey ideas. Whereas the progressive forward looking socialists were given modern geometric logos, done by well-known designers, the preservative conservatives did not hire designers and rather kept using traditional symbols, that were similar to the old coats of arms.

Not only the new logos wanted to visually get rid of anything that reminds them of the dictatorship, they also wanted to demonstrate their affiliation to Europe.

The old heraldic symbols of the coat of arms were used as a basis for the new logos, often reduced to pictograms, and international symbols were added. The new logos are more functional, due to the reedction they are easily scalable, have good contrast and work on different grounds.

The article

The article in general is written in a logical and structured way, but targets a very specified academic reader group and at the same time contains some paragraphs on design manuals or the challenges of designing good logos, which indicates that the text might not be primarily written for the native designer. The author goes much into the details of the logos but gives little information about the perception of the people, which makes it hard to tell if there is a big relevance to discussion this topic. He has a very academic style of writing and gives many references which adds credibility to what he is writing.

Let's give a thought rebrandings in general.

Multinational companies have rebrandings when things don't go right anymore and by a new visual appearance they try to create a new identity in the minds of their consumers and their staff, trying to communicate a "change" or getting rid of a negative image. Rebrands are often total fails. It usually requires a lot of strategy and marketing, not only a new logo. I wonder if those new logos of the spanish communities really played such a huge role for identification. The text didn't really discuss the perception of the everyday people. Does a new logo affect them? Do they even know about the logo of the community they live in?

A question to debate:

As a designer, would you design a logo for a nationalist party? Or any party whose politics you don't agree with? Can a designer in general design for an idea he hates? Is it possible to visually convey an idea you hate, in a way that it still works? Does a "good" designer need this ability?

Exhibition Making and Orientalism in the Western world

Original article: Staging the Lure of the East - Exhibition Making and Orientalism (Christine Riding) in Inankur, Z.et al „The Poetics and Politics of Place: Ottoman and British Orientalism.“ pp. 33-46.

In 2008 there was a Tate exhibition called "The Lure of the East" about British Orientalist painting between 1830 and 1920. Christine Riding who is an art gallery professional and one of the curators of this exhibition wrote an article about some insights on the curation process, for example the problems about choosing the artworks which eventually are in the gallery.

Therefore the target group of this article is most likely the specialized art audience, the academic world, maybe also a few very interested visitors of the exhibition, but no general public.

The author discusses questions weather curator's decitions are autonomous or more likely a response to external factors, how the subject of Orientalism influences the decitions and how a curatorial message can be conveyed to the public.

Why is it interesting to look further on an exhibition about Orientalism?

This exhibitions is a good example on how art can tangle the political landscape. Whatever the leading party concerns about will influence the art world as well - in this case it was the Labour Party's victory which led to issuing multiculturalism and diversity, which eventually led to British museums addressing Middle Eastern themes. She's quoting Yasmin Khan, saying that

"by its sheer nature of subject matter, the exhibition shoulders a grave responsibility in facilitating community cohesiveness, a case in point in demonstrating the critical role that cultural institutions have the potential to play (my emphasis)"

Tate modern itself hoped that this programming goes towards "encouraging participation, dialog and debate and engenerding greater understanding and awareness". They hope to "challenge static ideas of national history, art and identity”

But how powerful can an exhibition be? „What exactly can an exhibition be expected to achieve?“ she asked.

An exhibition summarizes and reduces information. It is compressed and might lack complexity, nuance and variables and the topic might not be presented adequately. The largest body of information on an exhibition can be found in the catalogues, which are only bought and read by a small academic art insider group.

Aren't those exhibitions only targeting an intellectual elite which is familiar with those topics, that are already being discussed in politics? Who are they targeting in general? What is the normal standard of knowledge that an exhibition assumes from it's audience? How do they set the standard? Based on what? Is it different, depending on the topic of the exhibition?

How to reach a large audience for the exhibition

The audience for the exhibition should be as large as possible, therefore concerning the marketing, posters are strategically relevant. They have to speak to the public, not only to those intellectual groups who are interested anyway.

The exhibition on Orientalism had 70,000 visitors, but the poster campaign would have been seen by millions, so the vast majority of the viewers didn't go to see the exhibition. The author questions if that means, the campaign has failed, but then quotes Lauren Rosewarne:

"Outdoor advertising is the most public and unavoidable of all advertising, yet is seldom approached as an issue of public importunece. (…) While it may be elitist to see a media audience as a homogeneous mass who unthinkingly absorb media messages, it is equally elitist to assume that audiences have the time, inclination or clitoral studies education to enable them to 'negotiate' messages until they become platable."

Whereas the author as a curator focusses on the visitor as a citizen, a marketing team focusses on him as a consumer. The marketing approach to advertising would operate with established stereotypes (using women to sell a product), even though it’s a Muslim subject.

Is it appropriate to use western advertising methods for a Muslim exhibition, using images of females? It raises the question about the position of women in the different cultures. And should advertising be appropriate or about raising public awareness? Can the advertising for an art exhibition play with clichés or should it better be dry and academic?

When a TV soap opera raises a whole political debate about the history and identity of a nation

I always thought an Ottoman is referring to a piece of furniture for the bedroom. A recent article in the New Yorker, written by Elif Batuman, proved me I'm terribly wrong and that I have a severe lack of knowledge in turkish history.

Read the original article here: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/17/ottomania

There's a recent trend going on in Turky, called „Ottomania“. This trend has even cost the live of a few people who protested against Erdogans plans of replacing a park with an Ottoman style shopping hall.

The article is mainly about a TV soap called „Magnificent Century“ which seems to be the tip of the iceberg of „Ottomania“. The series is based on the harem life of the Ottoman Sultan Süleyman and his wife Hürrem Sultan. It focusses more on relationships, animosities and gossip within the imperial household than sticking to historical investigations.

Sultans sons kill each other, there are many women and rivals. Women fight over beautiful jewelry that a powerful man (the sultan, who is also a goldsmith) gives to them. "Hürrem's ring" is sold a million times. The show„has been breaking Turkish television records since its première“ and it seems to be incredibly popular among "family-oriented middle class (…) Muslims (who) watch their own values reflected in a historical imperial setting" where Turky is depicted as "powerful, non-secularist (and) globally involved"

There's a strange connection between this TV soap opera and the actual politics that are going on in Turky.

The original Ottoman empire was not nationalist or imperial at all, when it declined and Atatürk started to reign, he invented a nationalist Turkish thinking. Magnificent Century now seems to hurt Erdogans nationalist feelings. Although he is running a neo-Ottomanist program, the show depicts a century which had no nationalism. Probably Erdogan dislikes it due to the fact that the show focuses more on the private life in the harem and of Süleyman than his nationhood and the politics and the conquering.

The leading party in Turky declared that the show would be discontinued, (but it wasn't even taken off the air in the end), there were Islamic protesters throwing eggs at the building of the television station offices and even Turkish Airlines excluded their show from it's in-flight programming.

Apparently the directors didn't intend to create such a huge social and political debate, but things went crazy. The author quotes the directors:

“Imagine — you create something, you gain the largest global following in Turkish television history. Nearly two hundred million people are watching your show. But in your own country you’re living almost in fear of being put in prison.”

Thougts

It's impressive how a TV show can raise so much awareness on a certain topic, what a powerful weapon. They didn't even plan to arouse such a furor. Would something like that work on purpose? When you plan to cause a public discourse on a certain topic?

Also, is the show so popular, because people enjoy intrigues and gossip, or is there something about those ancient habits and traditions like the Sharia laws and lower womens rights, which is appealing to them? Does this show make them feel as if in the Ottoman empire, life has been better than now, and therefore creates a longing for a time where everything seemed to have it's proper order, especially nowerdays in times of endless riots and insecurities?

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